


Those Who Stand and Wait

by thelittlelion



Category: Hamilton - Miranda, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Force4Ham, Multi, Stormtrooper!Burr, Stormtrooper!Hamilton, Stormtrooper!Theodosia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 22:18:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5719060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittlelion/pseuds/thelittlelion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AB-1804 wants so much to be like the wall he is treated as - to neither see nor hear nor feel.</p>
<p>But AH-1776 breathes out sedition in the night.</p>
<p>And TH-3054 is a mystery he doesn't know how to solve. </p>
<p>And AB-1804 catches a glimpse of his reflection and thinks <i>Is this me? Could I be free? </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Those Who Stand and Wait

**Author's Note:**

> I've taken to calling AB my little wallflower. You'll see. 
> 
> Also, this story has no beta and could really use a second-pair of eyes. Taking volunteers for anyone willing to help a writer out.

AB-1804 is the wall behind General Hux’s back. It’s the thought that he repeats to himself as the General examines the maps suspended in blue hologram throughout the room. Troops moved here, reinforcements to this base, exterminate this village and that town – AB-1804 is the wall and walls do not hear, do not listen, do not care.

 

It is a privilege to be in the room where it happens. It is also a test. AB-1804 is an exemplary soldier. He follows orders with dogmatic competence and seldom takes advantage of even the slightest creature comforts that Stormtroopers occasionally procure. At night, when the soldiers remove their helmets and armor for rest, his expression remains dull. He does not rub his bare hands over his skin seeking contact. He does not roll his joints or shake his head. He does join in the hushed voices that murmur of the other men to proven is own existence. In return, he is not offered a nickname. When his armor is removed he sleeps, he eats, he shits – when his armor is returned he stands, still and silent, and becomes a wall.

 

AB-1804 has been the wall behind General Hux’s back for 237 standard days. It would not seem an accomplishment, and indeed it lacked the flashy appearance of those who led battalions or fought with blasters, but AB-1804 knows the value of silence. Though his uniform is plain – no obvious markings of his status – the fact that when General Hux leaves this base, AB-1804 will be transferred to stand as the wall at the General’s next positions is enough.

 

AB-1804 is trusted.

 

AB-1804 is not a wall.

 

-

 

AH-1776 survives. It’s what he does.

 

He is born as one of one-hundred other experiments created in a test tube, a mixture of Clone DNA and strands of formidable drafted solders, or so they’re told. AH-1700 through AH-1737 don’t make it out of infancy. Twenty more die in their first five years of Conditioning. A collection more are dismissed when Training results in injuries too laborious to be repaired. AH-1776 is one of nineteen that make it to puberty, when the extra-experimental DNA they knew nothing about awakens and begins to wreck chaos through their systems.

 

They die, moaning and sweating on laboratory tables, skin cracking and peeling as their insides turn to mush and their brains begin to boil.

 

AH-1776 twitches and twitches and twitches and screams as his mind works and works and works without rhyme of rhythm. Sleep becomes a memory as does peace and quiet and rest. His veins course with blaster bolts. His body is electricity made flesh. On the outside, he remains whole. On in the inside, he is purged in fire.

 

AH-1776 is one of two that survives to twelve. Six months after they are released, AH-1769 bites off his tongue and drowns himself in his own blood. AH-1776 watches him do it. His body doesn’t sleep when it’s meant to anymore. He wants to reach out a hand – not entirely sure why – but regulation stops him. He is just so tired.

 

In the storm of his mind, he sees his own face die as the other soldier’s expression grows still. They had all looked so similar in the beginning – like a brother. Now he is the only one left.

 

His mouth forms a word, but he bites his own tongue before the thought comes aloud.

 

After, the experiment is deemed a failure and AH-1776 is reassigned to a little trafficked outpost where the rest of those with working bodies, but other lesser defects are made moderately useful.

 

It is a shipping base. He places checkmarks in boxes designating crates of rations and weapons and slaves. His eyes watch the red faces of the squalling infants that are packaged from the Breeding Grounds and sent on to their First Conditioning. Sometimes, when there is no one else around, he’ll open his mouth and scream with them, safe in the knowledge that their basic pain will hide the sound of his own anguish.

 

He reads the boxes carefully – mapping out the universe through lines of trade and shipments. In his head, his mind conjures matching destination for each package. Through the wares he discovers planets of sand and water and cold he will never be able to touch. He tracks the movements of the trade and feels, for a very brief moment, like a giant eye in the center of the galaxy.

 

After five year, the dull monotony is broken open by a hurricane of Resistance gunshots come to decimate the outpost. AH-1776 is in the cargo hold when the rebels arrive. The babies begin to cry. He survives the first onslaught of blaster fire through lucky placement. Due to this quirk in fate, he is given the time to react. When he realizes there is no one left to give him orders, he hacks through the system protocols and sounds the alarm himself – alerting the First Order to the attack. Their reinforcements comes in droves – too late for all but a few, like him, spared by auspicious assignment.

 

He survives. He is not sure he wants to. For his infraction, he is sent to Reconditioning. For his ingenuity, they reclassify the experiment a success. After a battery of tests, he is packed up and shipped to the Starkiller base. There is a holodesk where he sits, one of thousands now, while he brain is placed in precedent of his body now.

 

On occasion, when he discovers a particular reason behind the Resistance’s strategies, or predicts a certain outcome from moving certain troops to other places, he is called on to present his findings directly to the General.

 

It is there that he first feels the eyes upon him. Two Stormtroopers stand at the door of the General’s War Room. One of them leans almost unnoticeably on his left leg, shifting his weight subtly every few minutes to relieve the worst of the ache. The other does not move at all – stands perfectly still and quiet, like the face of AH-1769 when the blood had gone all the way down his throat.

 

AH-1776 does not stare when he his dismissed, but his eyes pick up the designation silent one’s helmet: _AB-1804._

His mind begins to work.

 

-

 

AB-1804 is not a wall. He takes notice of AH-1776 with the same intensity that he examines every occurrence that takes place within the General’s chamber. What he does not expect, and what he begins to both dread and crave with every meeting, is the acute sense that AH-1776 knows that he is watching.

 

They continue to meet – if meeting can be applied to the acute awareness of the other’s presence without every exchanging a word or unmasked glance of the eye.

 

AB-1804 is very, very good at observing others. He notices that when AH-1776’s fingers tap against his leg – a clear infraction – the higher officers observe and do nothing. He notes the frequency of AH-1776’s summons to General Hux’s chambers – no more than twice a month, yet far exceeding the usual amount presence of a single lowly grunt. Occasionally, General Hux will even ask AH-1776 a follow up question that requires the soldier to answer on the spot, rather than filling out the proper forms to be read allowed to the General as protocol dictates. AH-1776’s answers are always prompt and orderly, but sometimes his voice is too fast and there is a hint that AH-1776 might have spoken with excitement or some other emotion that was filtered out by the helmet.

 

AB-1804 watches the higher officers watch AH-1776 and wishes he could do more than just observe.

 

Then one day, when General Hux moves bases, AB-1804 walks into his new bunker and discovers that AH-1776 has been transferred with them. Without his helmet, the soldier is tan skin and dark in hair, with a protruding nose and a sharp mouth. AB-1804 observes this without pause in his normal routine, even as he walks to the bed next to AH-1776.

 

When he takes off his helmet, AB-1804’s eyes are dull and uninterested. He does not look at the soldiers stripping down around him. He removes his armor piece by piece and lies down on his back on the bed, closing his eyes obediently when the lights are shut off.

 

He does not sleep. He hears the whisper of movement to his right – the sound of a head turning perhaps. Perhaps it is his imagination that makes him feel as though he is being watched.

 

For a very brief moment, his control slips. He forgets to breath. The intake of breath into his lungs pauses. It takes no more than two seconds and yet –

 

AH-1776’s breath stops in the next bed over. AB-1804 hears the silence and he _knows._

 

This, AB-1804 realizes, is what it means to say hello. He feels giddy with the realization – as though he has just passed through a long endurance test and the shaking has not yet worn off.

 

When AB-1804 begins to breathe again, they breathe together.

 

-

 

Fifty days pass listening to each other breathe in the dark.

 

On the fifty-first, AB-1804 watches the high officers watch AH-1776 as he explains how to exploit the weaknesses in the Resistance’s trading network.

 

That night, he measures out his breaths carefully.

 

Inhale. Hold. Exhale.

 

Inhale. Inhale Hold. Exhale.

 

Inhale. Inhale hold. Inhale. Inhale. Exhale.

 

Inhale hold. Inhale. Inhale hold. Exhale.

 

Inhale. Inhale hold. Inhale. Inhale. Exhale.

 

Inhale. Exhale.

 

Inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Exhale.

 

Inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Exhale.

 

After the first hold, AH-1776 doesn’t match him. AB-1804 repeats the message. After the second time, AH-1776 repeats it back to him.

 

_Talk less_.

 

For a moment, AB-1804 feels relief and exultation. He finally got to _do_ something. He could finally save a life, rather than merely watch them be erased.

 

The moment doesn’t last.

 

-

 

AH-1776 does not listen to him.

 

Now, every night AB-1804 listens to AH-1776’s breathing and hears resistance in every measured beat. AH-1776 mind is non-stop. Even when AB-1804 falls asleep – he _cannot_ miss the regulated sleeping hours, not if he wants to maintain his station – he hears AH-1776’s hands scribble letter into the bed sheets, capturing his thoughts in invisible ink.

 

AH-1776 wants to hear about AB-1804’s past (he doesn’t have one) and about the General’s meetings (there are too many things to tell). In the gaps, he breathes words about what he’s seen and what he’s imagined to see. AB-1804 fears that AH-1776 doesn’t know the fantasy from the truth.

 

Sometimes, AB-1804 thinks he imagines it all up.

 

AH-1776 is just a soldier.

 

The patters in his breathing mean nothing.

 

AB-1804 is a wall – silent and useless and dead.

 

-

 

AB-1804 is fascinating.

 

AH-1776 has never had a friend before, but he thinks that AB-1804 might be the best one he’ll ever get.

 

First, he’s _brilliant._ AH-1776 still can’t quite believe sometimes how much AB-1804 manages to say without saying a word. The fact that he himself did not think to use one of the many simple codes they were taught only makes him appreciate the fact that he has chosen the right person to be his first friend.

 

Second, AB-1804 cares. AH-1776 knows this. He keeps the words _talk less_ held close to his chest as he goes about his duties. He tries to fall more in line but it is difficult. His mind picks up the puzzle pieces in the work they give him and he cannot rest until he has fixed them, turned the situation upside down and over until he knows every inch of it. When he knows it, he must tell it and when he tells it, he knows that others are watching.

 

AB-1804 is watching and sometimes AH-1776 even gets the funny feeling that this renders him _safe._

 

It’s foolishness, but it persists. AH-1776 pays AB-1804 back with stories of his earlier years. AB-1804 doesn’t reciprocate, but that’s okay. AH-1776 doesn’t mind filling the void.

 

When AB-1804 sleeps, AH-1776 stays awake far later into the rest cycle. There is something special in the fact that none of the higher ups have caught that AH-1776 does not need the same amount of sleep as the other soldiers. It is his secret – one that only AB-1804 knows. He lies on his back very quietly listening to the other man sleep. In his mind he begins to think. A plan begins to form.

 

It will need bold strokes, but then – what did they have to lose?

 

-

 

There must be something new in the food, because AB-1804 has never felt this way before.

 

His partner is dismissed. Not for any infraction but because GH-5263 is old and frailty is not tolerated. AB-1804 knew it was coming when the other soldier began to limp, very subtly, as they walked to their post. They have been stationed together for more than a year – a very long time in AB-1804’s books. He thinks he will regret the other man’s age.

 

He does not. TH-3054 replaces GH-5263 so seamlessly, it takes AB-1804 almost a week to realize that there is something strange happening.

 

TH-3054 is female. AB-1804 notices this a week into their post together. He has never seen a female Stormtrooper before, so it takes time for him to add up the thin wrists and slightly curving waist. Male and female Stormtroopers do not serve in the same squads, for fear of unauthorized breeding. The only other female Stormtrooper AB-1804 knows is Phasma, who is a league of her own. The presence of one now, when AH-1776 breathes every night of rebellion, unnerves him.

 

It must be a test. AB-1804 is scrupulous in ignoring any suggesting that hints that he may know what TH-3054 is and she, in turn, seems just as content to ignore him.

 

They exist without acknowledgement of one another, yet this – in turn – only seems to magnetize their awareness of one another. As with AH-1776, AB-1804 is grossly conscious of TH-3054’s presence. He cannot stop his mind from tangling itself in questions as to her purpose.

 

Has he let something slip? Is he to be replaced? If he does not acknowledge his new partner’s sex, will that be a sign of his loyalty or will it be interpreted as a fault in his surveillance?

 

He speaks to AH-1776 about it, because AH-1776 is good with puzzles. AH-1776 is startled. He asks many, many questions. Yet, between the two of them they cannot come up with a reason to explain TH-3054’s presence.

 

Without an answer, the days trickle on in clockwork. TH-3054 is a bright star by his side that he cannot bare to look at, but whose gravity he cannot escape.

 

-

 

When the Resistance attacks the First Order while General Hux is flying on a lesser ship that normal, AB-1804 and TH-3054 stand outside the door and shoot at the rebels who attempt to pass them.

 

The concept is simple. Shoot at anything that is not wearing white armor or a black uniform.

 

The reality is messy. The Stormtroopers are drafted from humans or crafted with human DNA. Consistency is the number one-driving factor behind the troops. Having a multitude of species would negate from that uniformity.

 

Though AB-1804 knows of different species, he has little experience fighting them. When one of the rebels turns out to be three meters tall, with claws and a tail, it takes them more effort than usual to put the threat down.

 

In the melee, the rebel manages to get close enough to throw AB-1804 across the corridor, where he crumples against the wall hearing his head ring. He tries to get up – a Stormtrooper who does not get up is a dead Stormtrooper – but doesn’t quite manage it by the time TH-3054 fires the final shot at the intruder.

 

When it is dead, she turns to look at him and freezes. It is only then that AB-1804 realizes that his helmet has been knocked free in the fall. He is exposed. Under her inspection, he finds that he cannot keep his indifference.

 

He smiles.

 

It fades when she does not move. After a long moment, TH-3054 steps over the dead Resistance fighter and picks up his helmet from the floor. She brings it to him and AB-1804 struggles to at last find his feet.

 

When she hands it to him, he hesitates to put it back on. He thinks he should say something, but he does not have the words for anything like this.

 

He does not need them. TH-3054 turns her head to stare up and down the corridor, before carefully reaching up and taking off her helmet.

 

Her skin is even darker than his, but her head she shaven to the skull just like his. She has a small, delicate nose and big, tired eyes.

 

She smiles at him.

 

-

 

He does not tell AH-1776. He is not sure he has the words for it and besides; everyday AH-1776’s grows more and more recalcitrant. AB-1804 feels as though he might drown in the fervor.

 

AB-1804 is fast becoming aware that AH-1776 is reaching a tipping point, but he has no way of forcing the man to slow down. Everyday seems a test of his camaraderie and bravery. And it is bravery that he relies on now, in the face of AH-1776’s blatant hatred of the First Order. Bravery and fear – what would it mean to be the person who turned on their only friend?

 

That is what they are now. Friends. AH-1776 was the first to use the word and now AB-1804 is trapped. When he imagined stepping in to save a persons life, he never imagined that they might grow so attached.

 

Then again, he never imagined he might have the feelings he feels for TH-3054 either.

 

After the Resistance’s attack, they are regulated back to the Starkiller base, where General Hux argues loudly with the only other person who dares to resist him, Kylo Ren.

 

AB-1804 very carefully does not think about Kylo Ren. In fact, he very carefully doesn’t think of anything at all then the Knight is in the room. Most officials only saw the Stormtroopers as decorations on the wall, something that might be kicked if in the way, but otherwise no different then a table. Kylo Ren is different. He _notices_ the Stormtroopers – knows them well enough to use their designations when he order them – a feat no one who isn’t a Stormtrooper is known to do. AB-1804 has had to encounter Kylo Ren several times during his station with General Hux, but such events never fail to terrify him.

 

He is lucky at least that both the General and the Knight seem distracted. Sessions last longer into the night, until AB-1804 and TH-3054’s rest cycle reliefs come before either men have show any sign of stopping.

 

It unnerves AB-1804, but not enough that he is not grateful for the 57 seconds he and TH-3054 get to spend alone as they walk out of the room to their separate sleeping quarters.

 

After the third time they walk the pathway without another soul in sight, she lets her hand brush against his twice.

 

Five days later, he risks holding her hand – squeezing even – for a full three strides. When she reciprocates the next day, he is so elated he cannot help but to try to share the experience with AH-1776. His friend listens quietly in the darkness.

 

_Did – like ?_ he asks, when AB-1804 fumbles to a stop, not sure if he conveyed even an ounce of what he feels.

 

_Yes,_ he says.

 

The next day AH-1776’s fingers touch AB-1804’s arm as they strip out of their uniform. Burr very carefully does not freeze. There. For an instant. Skin on skin. It is forbidden. Nobody needs to know.

 

_You – warm,_ AH-1776 tells him when they lie in bed that night.

 

_Too,_ AB-1804 answers.

 

_Want – more,_ AH-1776 continues.

 

AB-1804 thinks of TH-3054’s dark skin shining under the hard white light.

 

_Yes_ , he says.

 

-

 

For the first time he listens to his friend speak and does not think _this man will kill us_ , but instead wonders _could this man free us?_

He loses sleep.

 

-

 

TH-3054 holds his hand.

 

-

 

AH-1776’s brushes his skin.

 

-

 

General Hux and Lord Ren’s arguments continue to grow.

 

-

 

AH-1776 talks about a ship – about a _way out_ and AB-1804 begins to think –

 

-

 

_could this be real?_

_-_

TH-3054’s fingers curl into his and –

 

_Could she be mine?_

_-_

AH-1776 shudders in one of his rare moments of sleep.

 

_Could he be right?_

-

 

AB-1804 can see a dark figure in the blurry reflection of shower’s white tiles.

 

_Is this me? Could I be free?_

_-_

And then ---

 

-

FN-2187 steals a prisoner and a ship.

 

-

 

FN-2187 does not shoot the civilians.

 

-

 

FN-2187 calls himself Finn and he has a name and

 

Weallcould _havenames_

**_andthat’smewe’rethesame_ **

****

**_ihave_** _na_ me

-

 

-

 

-

 

-

 

-

 

Reconditioning.

 

-

 

-

 

-

 

It burns.

 

-

 

-

 

-

 

-

 

He is cold.

 

-

 

-

 

-

 

He is a wall.

 

-

 

-

 

He is a wall.

 

-

 

He is a wall.

 

-

 

General Hux looks at him now.

 

-

 

He is a wall.

 

-

 

MT-9004 stands with him now.

 

~~Where is TH-3054?~~

-

 

He is a wall.

 

-

 

He is a wall.

 

-

 

They have not returned his ~~friend~~ AH-1776.

 

-

 

He is a wall.

 

-

 

He is a wall.

 

-

 

He is a wall.

 

-

 

_~~but her skin was like starlightandhenevergotto~~ touch ~~~~_

__

-

 

He isawall.

 

-

 

He is a _wall_.

 

-

 

He is a wall.

 

-

 

He rubs his fingers against his palm under the sheets. _~~Warm~~_

__

_-_

He is a wall.

 

-

 

He is a wall.

 

-

 

He is a wall?

 

 


End file.
